Yorkville farm, residents sue to stop second massive data center project

A second lawsuit has been filed against a second massive data center project in Yorkville, Illinois, led by a family farm that says it'll turn their land into a "concrete jungle."

Yorkville residents filed their first lawsuit in April to block construction of a planned 1,037-acre data center known as "Project Cardinal" which was approved earlier this year. Now Teska Family Farm is at the forefront of the second lawsuit challenging "Project Steel."

Leesa Poss said the land on two sides of her farm would be surrounded by the data center.

"We had horses, goats, everything," she said. "They're not going to have fresh air, they're not going to have this place to play without the noise, the air pollution. What's it going to do to this well? There's just so many questions."

Poss's family bought Teska Family Farm more than 40 years ago, and Poss said her loved ones have called it home for generations. She's been very vocal at Yorkville City Council meetings after the area around her farm was annexed and rezoned from residential to manufacturing.

Poss said if a data center is built there, it would be devastating.

"We'll have a concrete jungle if this all happens," she said. "I've never been opposed to data centers, but I am opposed to data centers on top of homes."

The second lawsuit that Poss is a part of challenges the city's approval of Project Steel along the Eldamain Corridor.

Chuck Kasper fought the same fight to preserve the land near his home that is now zoned for the Project Cardinal data center campus.

"We bought out here to have quiet, farmland, trees and with the swipe of a pen, it's going away," he said.

Kasper is a member of Preserve Our Yorkville & Community LLC, which is part of both lawsuits seeking to block the city from starting construction of data centers in their community.

"This was on an agenda and it got voted through and the public had no say," he said of the first data center.

The most recent lawsuit alleges the city did not provide public notice before holding a public hearing on the project, nearby property owners weren't mailed notices, and the city ignored state notice requirements and approved project that conflict with its own planning documents.

"Eight people decided what our lives were gonna be like and they don't live by them," Poss said.

CBS News Chicago has reached out to both companies that plan to build data centers in Yorkville and are still waiting for their comment.

Yorkville City Administrator Bart Olson said the city does not comment on active litigation.